


It's Fine if It's Tomorrow

by spacego



Category: ST 赤と白の搜查ファイル | ST Aka to Shiro no Sousa File
Genre: M/M, Post-Canon, hyperbolic angsting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-22
Updated: 2018-03-20
Packaged: 2018-09-11 01:49:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8948824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacego/pseuds/spacego
Summary: Akagi has no hidden agenda, he is just excited because Mister is another mystery that needs to be solved.





	1. Chapter 1

One day, Saegusa-san (who had resumed his old position in the Force) came across a stray who turned out to be a down-on-his-luck bartender. Because Saegusa-san couldn't help but pick up strays, he reopened Cafe 3. Well, he did say that the last closure had been temporary. When the time came, he invited everyone to come celebrate.  
  
The fact that it was also ST's anniversary, Saegusa-san insisted, was merely a coincidence.  
  
Anniversaries were always interesting, especially when you could see how far everyone had come. Not that he cared, Akagi added his own mental note. He really didn't care. Really, really.  
  
He sat in a corner, almost elbowed out of the way by an endless stream of guests. Matsudo-rijikan was there, uncharacteristically giddy as she goaded the bartender into making high-powered cocktails--more alcohol than mixer--that grew weirder with every new pour. Apparently, in addition to having nerves of steel, the woman also had stomach lining of steel.  
  
Tsutsui's team had been against attending at first, except Makimura Shinji who followed the woman around like a lost puppy. But well-placed hints that their old team leader, Kikukawa, would drop by later, succeeded in getting them to step foot inside what they called "The ST Lion's Den", albeit reluctantly.  
  
The cafe was not small, but this amount of bodies in one place--with the promise of more--was starting to make Akagi feel claustrophobic. He felt his hackles rise for some reason. Oddly enough, the certified claustrophobic of the team, Yuki, didn't seem bothered at all. In fact, she was chipper as Akagi had never seen her be. She was chatting up a storm with one of Tsutsui's new recruits, and apparently they shared a mutual love for.... who-knows-what.  
  
Akagi slumped in his seat, he really was feeling a bit trapped and crowded out. This sort of setting was not good for him, the self-confessed lone wolf. It was odd, he mused into his coffee cup, how a year ago he was truly a bona-fide shut-in, whose face to face interactions were limited to one-minute exchange with the food deliveryperson (and the occasional, once a month two-minute exchange with Amazon.com).  
  
His musing was interrupted by a none-to-gentle shoulder bump. "However way you count it, there's still one person missing," Aoyama said around a mouthful of omurice. The last mouthful too, Akagi noted the shiny, empty-plate. There used to be a time when she would've left some stuff on the plate just so that it wouldn't be so clean and empty.  
  
"I guess," Akagi replied. They were definitely missing one person--the person who was wholly responsible for these reversals of personalities--that dandelion-haired idiot. Akagi rued the day he let Mister Yurine--and his idiot grin and his idiot hair and his idiotly perfectly tied and lined necktie--drew Akagi out of his lonewolf-hood and into the complicated world of humans.  
  
"If you're talking about Yurine," Ikeda piped in, "he's still wrapping up a case." Akagi narrowed his eyes and sighed. Now that Mister had graduated out from ST and doing great things with the big boys across the park at HQ, they were stuck with Captain Stuck Up Four Eyes. Though Akagi must admit that Ikeda made a good Cap Two, who was bearable most of the time. The man had good instincts and a steady hand--the bomb squad had yet to get over their jealousy.  
  
"Ah yes, the murder-suicide case," Yamabuki butted into their conversation, surprising everyone who thought he was quietly meditating in the corner.  
  
"Mister doesn't hang out with us anymore," Aoyama pouted and ordered another serving of omurice. If Matsudo-rijikan had stomach lining of steel, then Aoyama had a black hole in her stomach.  
  
Akagi did not have to look to know that Kurosaki was gloating. He was the only one Mister still hung out with lately, mostly to go to that amateur theater hour with Kurosaki's friend.  
  
"You can wipe that smile off your face, Kurosaki," Akagi huffed. "The last time was over a month ago, wasn't it?"  
  
Nowadays, it was more like radio silence from Mister's part.

* * * * * 

When Mister first moved across the small park that separated their office building from the main HQ building, he would often come at the end of the work day to grumble at them. When Akagi grumbled back to say that they're not providing counselling sessions for ex-colleagues, Mister would come up with all sorts of flimsy excuses.  
  
Like donut deliveries for Aoyama, or handing Yamabuki artisan incense cones. Or delivering concert tickets for Yuki. Akagi told his team mates they shouldn't accept bribes, but they all insisted that they paid for these stuff fair and square.  
  
"If you feel left out, Akagi-san, just say so," Mister said with that idiotic smile on his face. "Here, for you."  
  
Until today, Akagi-san still didn't know where or how Mister managed to get the Gakky bottle-cap. He didn't want to admit it, but it was one of the most sought after item in his bucket list, something not even someone with his sharp detective mind could track down. He chalked it up as one of Mister's quirks.  
  
But those visits had trickled down from every day to thrice a week, to once a week, to biweekly, to.... never.

* * * * * 

Some time before midnight, the cafe's door was flung open forcefully. Everyone turned around and sighed when they saw who stumbled in.  
  
"Try to curb your disappointment, why don't you?" Kikukawa groused as he flung himself to the empty seat next to Akagi. "One large beer, please, Saegusa-san."  
  
A few more people from Kikukawa's group breezed through the cafe door within the next few minutes or so. He recognized some of them, by virtue of them saving his ass during the Kaburagi case. And every time the door opened, everyone (to their horror and disbelief) turned around and couldn't help but be disappointed.  
  
"Sorry to burst your bubble, but if you're looking for Yurine, he's not coming," Kikukawa said, chugging his tankard down and belching prodigiously. "He said he's going home."  
  
Akagi wanted to ask how come Kikukawa knew, until he remembered that this particular case was a joint one between Mister's and Kikukawa's groups. The mother in the murder-suicide case was a koban officer who drowned her son and took her own life after. It was a sad day when they heard it.  
  
"It's always bad when it's one of our own," Ikeda told Kikukawa, raising his half empty sake glass in the air in a mock salute. "You've worked hard."  
  
"Thanks," Kikukawa said tiredly. Akagi could tell that the big man only wanted to be left alone with his beer.  
  
But of course Aoyama didn't care about that. "Did he forget about today? Did you forget to remind him?" Aoyama pressed. "You know he tend to forget things."  
  
"No, I told him." Kikukawa had almost manhandled Yurine into the car, even. But ST didn't need to know that, so he kept mum.  
  
"So he just didn't want to come?" Aoyama's disappointment was plain in her words.  
  
"Who knows. Maybe he was just tired. The case was bad, and his team was fighting him every step of the way," Kikukawa replied, nodding his thanks when a plate of tamagoyaki was placed in front of him.   
  
Akagi was frowning, as though thinking too deeply.  
  
Aoyama--who guessed correctly what he was doing--bumped his shoulders, "I thought we decided we won't profile fellow members."  
  
"But he's not really a member of our group anymore, is he?" Akagi said off-handedly.

* * * * * 

Apparently one of Kikukawa's staff belonged to the same gym as Kurosaki, not that Akagi cared. It was odd to see Kurosaki speak two words a minute for the past half an hour solid. It's not much, but downright talkative for Kurosaki.  
  
Akagi decided that he would eavesdrop elsewhere, he really wasn't into boxing after all.  
  
"It must be real bad for Yurine," Ikeda later remarked to Kikukawa. "I thought they'd get used to him by now."  
  
"We gelled up to him really quickly back then, didn't we?" Kikukawa said. "Then again, we're biased."  
  
"Biggest mystery of the century. I still don't know why we did," Ikeda mumbled.   
  
They looked up when they felt eyes on them, and saw Saegusa-san's concerned face. "You two know him rather well."  
  
The two men's left brow rose in perfect unison. "Ya think?"  
  
"Eh, I forgot you came up the academy around the same time as he did," the older man commented.  
  
"Heh, time flies, doesn't it? We can barely believe it ourselves," Ikeda said, smiling. Funny how he no longer resented being passed for a promotion. Not as much anymore anyway. He still wondered sometimes, but had come to the conclusion that Yurine was a rare species that defied logical explanation anyway. "He's changed so much since then."  
  
But Saegusa-san was already out of the door, phone in hand. Akagi frowned but said nothing.

* * * * * 

Saegusa-san was gone an awfully long time. It was almost dawn when he returned. Akagi saw how surprised the older man was to find that almost everyone were still there, albeit in different stages of inebriation.  
  
"If only he realized just how much you all worried after him," Saegusa-san commented as he stepped back into the cafe. He smiled affectionately as he saw all of them shot up straight to their feet like fireworks at a summer matsuri. He smiled gratefully at the sleep-deprived group. "I think you all better go home. It's still Friday and all you lot still have to clock into work in less than 4 hours."  
  
Apparently, "all you lot" did not include him, Akagi thought darkly. Saegusa-san pulled him aside even as his friends and co-workers stumbled out of the Cafe and into civilization. He had a bad feeling about this, but Saegusa-san was adamant for some reason.  
  
"Here," Saegusa-san slid a glass of water across the bar.

Wasn't this an ominous gesture? Akagi thought. 

* * * * * 

Akagi still didn't know why he should be the one to go seek out stray Mister Yurine. So he didn't come to the Cafe's big reopening. Big deal. Akagi used to miss events all the time, important ones like promotions and demotions or disciplinary board hearings. 

"But that was a long time ago, wasn't it?" Saegusa-san said with exactly no inflection. Damn the man for being so sly anyway, Akagi thought, shrugging on his coat jacket and stepping out of the Cafe feeling expectant stares burning twin holes on his back. 

Saegusa-san had told him that he might still be able to find Mister at the old ST office, the windowless basement from whence they had risen out of. Failing that he should try Mister's apartment.

His conversation with Saegusa-san had stretched across a good half-hour, so he was surprised to find Kikukawa sitting on the floor across the elevator by his lonesome. The others had gone home, Kikukawa said.

Akagi who had grown some manners within the last year or two, swallowed his "so why are you still here", and offered a grimace instead. 

"The apartment address Saegusa-san gave you is old," Kikukawa said, climbing onto his feet, and brushing dust off the seat of his pants. "Here's the new one. He moved out over a month ago." One of the perks working at Personnel, Kikukawa received change of address forms earlier than even the higher ups. Yurine had asked him to keep it quiet for now since he was not settled in yet and might still move, but Akagi was on a mission that Kikukawa empathized with.

* * * * * 

Consulting his GPS against the small piece of paper, Akagi discovered that Mister's new apartment wasn't so far away from the Cafe. Akagi went there first. Strictly because the apartment was closer and on the way to the other place, of course. It wasn't like he's profiling a friend or anything.

Mister's apartment wasn't exactly in the poor part of town, but neither was the rent astronomical here. And a person with no friends and no social life like Mister could definitely afford something even better than this anyway.

The door was unlocked, one of Mister's careless traits. It was dark and quiet and he wondered whether Mister was even home.

But Akagi Samon was an inquisitive person at heart, some people (like Mister) might call him nosy, so he decided to poke around a bit. Out of everyone who had passed through his life, Mister was the biggest enigma of all.

"He was a rather rare bird himself," Saegusa-san had once told him. Perhaps Saegusa-san was right about Mister after all.

He waited a while for his eyes to adjust to the relative darkness, and saw square patterns on the walls. It would be like Mister to have plaid wallpapering, he thought.

He padded barefoot deeper into the apartment, and marveled at how sparse it was. A few movers' boxes were stacked neatly into one corner, even though it had been a month since he moved in. 

He made his way to the other end of the apartment, noting sparse kitchen. If he opened the fridge, he might find it empty. The small cramped bathroom/toilet was even sparser, he noted.

The deeper into the room he got, the more 'populated' it looked. At least Mister had unpacked a few things, it somehow made Akagi less worried for some reason. He decided to think more about it later, now he had some exploring to do. A medium height bookcase cramped with books and folders, a small low table facing a big window, and finally a futon still folded and pushed against the side wall toward the back of the room.

* * * * * 

On the table was a small lamp, enough to cast long shadows across the wall and to eerily illuminate Mister's head, bowed over something he was scribbling furiously on.

"You really shouldn't have your back to the door, you know," Akagi said, in lieu of greetings. "You might get stabbed in the back."

The scribbling stopped and the head snapped up and around.

Under dim light was a Mister that Akagi had never seen--wild-eyed and lost, brows knitted in a way that must have hurt, mouth twisted in the kind of sorrow and pain that Akagi never wanted to see anymore on Mister's face.

"You need to have a better sense of self-preservation," Akagi said as he pushed down the sense of cold dread that was rising up in his veins. He flailed instead, his hand made vague stabbing motion aimed at Mister's back.

"Sometimes..." Mister ventured a word slowly, as though he wasn't sure it should be said out loud. "Sometimes, I don't think I would mind."

* * * * * 

Akagi's mind had very specific memories about Mister and each of them came together to give him a glimpse into the enigma--someone whose heart bled for everything and everyone, someone who fought hard to make and keep a place for five very broken and very flawed geniuses, someone who had drawn Akagi out of his shell with the sheer force of his will and earnestness.

Someone who couldn't profile a suspect worth a damn. Someone who couldn't say anything without first referring to his notes. Someone who had taught them how to be human.

Someone who fought to see the good in everyone, even in serial killers. Someone who's unfailingly kind that he would automatically be the good cop in any good-cop-bad-cop scenario.

He knew a smiling Mister (either the genuinely happy or the forced one), a frowning Mister, a cocksure Mister, a horrified Mister, a drunken Mister, an angry Mister, a frantic Mister, a steadfast Mister.

But the Mister he saw in that small room threatened to open the world up from underneath his feet and swallow him whole. 

* * * * * 

Akagi found himself rooted to the spot, helplessly, unable to move even if he wanted to. He looked helplessly as Mister stared at him like he was some apparition.

"I'm sorry," Akagi said even before he realized what he was saying. He didn't know what he was even apologizing for, but he thought there's many things he had to apologize for anyway, for past mistakes, and even future ones.

He didn't know why but he felt horrified when he saw Mister trying very hard to offer up a smile. An apologetic one, and an ugly one because it contorted Mister's face into a mixture of sorrow and acceptance.

"Did you... just apologize?" Mister's voice was heavy and scratchy, but his eyes and face looked dry. "Why?"

"I... I don't...know?" Akagi was as a loss too. Why indeed? He never made it a habit to apologize, Mister usually made the apologies for him and for everyone else. Akagi suddenly realized that, in the last five or so years, Akagi had apologized only a grand total of two times, and all of them had been directed to Mister. He wondered why. "Why indeed," Akagi finally decided on saying, aiming for levity.

Inwardly he cursed Saegusa-san for sending him on this fool's errand. If Saegusa-san thought he could root out whatever problem Mister was facing, Saegusa thought wrong. Akagi might sooner drive Mister to suicide, than console him.

The horror he felt must've been plain on his face that Mister laughed suddenly. "Don't worry, I'm not going to off myself," Mister said tiredly, offering a smile. Akagi wondered whether Mister was trying to offer one of his 'Reassuring Smiles', because it was the saddest smile he had seen on anyone.

"I'm okay, really," Mister said in a way that made Akagi plop himself down to the floor as quickly as possible. So he didn't have to think about how compulsive he was, Akagi busied himself by moving around so that he was fully inside the room's perimeter. He also wondered now how big Mister's personal bubble really was. Just to be safe that he's not treading on proverbial or literal toes, he inched sideways, toward the curtain covered balcony door.

It was uncharacteristic of him, come to think of it, especially when he wasn't even sure about normal human feelings. The only thing he was sure about whas the urgent need to make Mister understand that Akagi Samon was not leaving.


	2. Interlude: Saegusa Toshiro

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An interlude of sorts. Takes place some time in the few hours when Saegusa-san stepped out a little bit (a long time) from the Cafe. And we see a little bit of Yurine before ST.

_\--a few hours ago--_

 

 

Saegusa knew that the odds were long with this one, but it was a bet worth taking anyway. 

He had ducked out of his bartending duties, left his people in the care of his other people, and prayed that nothing would go amiss while he was out seeking an errant kid.

He barely remembered this place, but he found it anyway.  A basement in a squat nondescript building that had definitely seen better times, all but abandoned and would've been pulled down if not for government red tape. The hallway was dusty and poorly lit. All the bulbs that hadn't blown flickered lazily above him, and he used their headache inducing light to help him follow telltale footprints that led one way. It wasn't really that long of a walk, but the echoes of his own footsteps were loud and getting to his nerves.

There was a door at the end of the corridor, as silent and as non-judgmental as the rest of the building that used to house ST's first office together.

Saegusa scrubbed a weary hand over his tired face. It wasn't so long ago that ST was formed, and it was certainly not so long ago when they were holed up here, but it did feel like a lifetime had passed. 

He still remembered how the superiors had been smug when they told him about the move, as though they were bestowing him with some sort of favor. As though as they're giving him one huge condescending pat on the back, for some imaginary job they had considered to be well-done.

For their stellar achievement, and for fairly good conduct, the inscrutable difficult— _difficult—_ kids will be allowed to exchange their dark dank basement for a better ventilated one, and their father-figure— _minder—_ gets to leave his small corner office into a bigger dignified one.

He marveled at how far they had  _all_ come. 

 

** ** ** ** ** 

 

He stared at the door as though willing the hinges to throw themselves back and let him in. But he wasn't telekinetic. There's faint flickering light squeezing through the gap at the bottom of the door, the pulsing light only half a second off from the flicker of the light above his head. 

He could hear movement inside—paper being shifted around, desks being pushed and chairs sliding across gritty linoleum flooring. Sometimes, there's a sigh, loud enough to reach him through the door. His hand hovered above the door knob. He wondered what sort of reception he would receive.

The last time Saegusa had cornered Yurine alone in an empty and dark place, he had landed the younger man in hot water. Got the young man shot, then strangled, and shot again. The boy would never blame him to his face, polite and non-confrontational to a fault as he was, but Saegusa would never blame Yurine for growing a complex and looking at him warily from then on.

Saegusa wondered when he finally realized Yurine Tomohisa would be the one to lead ST. He couldn't remember the first time he noticed the man.

 

** ** ** ** **

 

It must've began a long time ago and he wouldn't know how it started, but one way or another, his attention had time and again been drawn to a group of three young Lieutenants, three friends coming up from the academy. One of them had excelled earlier than the others. Ikeda Sousuke was the first to be promoted to Inspector, and then quickly to Superintendent. All the looks, the smarts and that rare sharp instinct for inter-office politics. That young man could go far, Saegusa had heard spoken more than once, as far as the very top, even. He didn't doubt it. 

Between the three, the last one was the least promising. From what he kept hearing around the office, Yurine Tomohisa was useless in the field, easily flustered and had difficulty stringing words together which he hadn't rehearsed or written down before hand. At least he was good at note-taking and following orders. He seemed to coast through his career by being buoyed by his two friends. 

A break however, was inevitable in life, and he watched the three drifted apart by virtue of their rank in the Force. They say you only quarrel with people you care about. So, it came as no surprise when cracks began to form. soon, the three began sniping at each other. Saegusa watched Yurine gave as good as he took, though perhaps not as often if only by virtue of his lesser standing.

"You can fuck off while you're at it, Yurine!" Ikeda yelled one day, stopping short of launching a pen at the man standing in front of him. Saegusa hung around with a group of onlookers. It had the same feeling as one would have while watching a car crash site.

He saw how badly Yurine wanted to offer a rebuttal, but the way the crowd had gathered, Yurine might've given his piece of mind before Saegusa arrived on the scene. Instead the man snapped his jaw shut with so much force it was a wonder he didn't break a tooth, and offered an apology and a text-book bow.

Ikeda on his part merely huffed, sending Yurine away with a "don't do it again."

The crowd parted with a loud murmur, barely allowing Yurine to pass through with his dignity in tact. Most of the onlookers, armed with fresh gossip, began to dispel like chattering crows. It was almost enough for Saegusa to miss seeing Ikeda fish his cellphone from the inner pocket of his starched jacket.

Saegusa hung around, shamelessly eavesdropping. Any kind of information, he reasoned to himself, would be important sooner or later anyway.

"Kikukawa?" Ikeda said a short second later. "I hope to god he's heading your way, but just in case he's not, then would you mind looking him up... Hmm? I might be a tad too harsh but whatever.... I know. Just... I know he's right, I don't need you to tell me that. But we can't afford to.. oh fine. Okay, you do that, I owe you one.... fine. I don't owe you one."

It piqued his interest, how the three of them managed to balance their different facades—well, Ikeda and Kikukawa managed to do it better than Yurine, who thought everyone and their dog were his friends.

Soon after, the second of the three, Kikukawa Goro, was promoted sideways. The higher-ups didn't think he was good enough go up, so they kept him a Lieutenant but gave him a small group of subordinates to take care of.

Like any new group leader, Kikukawa's transition was rougher than the man probably had expected. He was good at hiding it, however, and Saegusa wouldn't have known about if he hadn't been smoking on the roof.

"You could be nicer to Kikukawa," a familiar voice floated from yonder beyond the second satellite dish. 

"He's not the only one to get his ass chewed by the boss, you know," also familiar. Saegusa began to wonder whether his eavesdropping habits were already borderline stalking, unintentional though it may be. It's not his fault if he always found himself in the right place at the right time. It did wonders to his career progression, anyway. 

"Of course I know, especially when I get yelled at by the two of you. It's like getting chewed out in surround sound," Yurine huffed. The boy—man really, but affectionately still a boy—sounded petulant. 

"I wasn't wrong." Ikeda was decisive, unapologetic and, Saegusa had learned, above whining. 

"No, you weren't. I know that. But taking away the case from him is a bit much, don't you think?"

"None of your business, actually."

"I apologize," Yurine said gravely and somehow, sincerely. On other people, those two words could come off patronizing.

"Tch. You should probably drop the formality when there's only us around."

"Sometimes, I wonder if I'm just being left behind."

"Like that's even possible," Ikeda tsked again. Even from his hiding place, Saegusa could see Ikeda fighting off a smile from forming on his face. Why was it difficult to stay mad at Yurine? "Anyway, take Kikukawa out to some ramen later. My treat," Ikeda said.

"I wish you'd come with us."

"Nope, the one who yells gets time out, remember?"

"You've been giving yourself so many time outs lately. Ramen-jiisan keeps asking after you. He wonders if you're dead or something."

"Gives me time to spend with my new wife, though, right?"

"That's one way of putting it, I guess." The silence that stretched afterward was no longer tense. It was even companionable. A quiet breeze picked up, swirling dust and ashes and stray leaves across the roof's concrete floor.

Saegusa learned, over time, that the third was actually not as useless as other people seemed to think he was. So he peeled his eyes and ears open and learned how well the three worked together, despite their outward animosity. How nothing escaped the three of them when it came to their own little group. He saw how the three of them prop each other up, even when they're sniping at each other.

Ikeda was careful, Kikukawa was practical, and Yurine saw the good in everyone.

One day, Saegusa found the latter of the three in the shooting range. It was during a time when all personnel had to renew their gun certification. He hadn't realize it before, but Yurine Tomohisa was more than excellent with a gun.

"Have they ever asked you to join the sniper squad?" Saegusa asked in between a quiet lull. He had thought that the young man would've fit in quite nicely with that branch of the force. A sharp eye, good trigger reflexes, and the ability to follow orders. But in hindsight, the job description would chew up his soul and spit it out.

"Now and again, I suppose," Yurine said, taking apart his gun with ease. Everyone in the force knew how to take apart a gun, and knew the importance of cleaning a gun. Something told Saegusa that keeping a gun clean was not merely a task for Yurine. I would be much later that Saegusa learned the meaning behind Yurine's cleaning habits.

There were many things he wanted to ask, but the sudden spate of incoming marksmen stopped their conversation. Saegusa hung back and made note of the easy exchange between Yurine and some of the younger marksmen. There were a bit of light-hearted ribbing and jibes, a few pats on the back. It might not mean anything, but Saegusa didn't rise up the ranks by dismissing trivial details.

The next time around, Saegusa found Yurine crouched in a corner, head pressed into a groove on the wall.

Saegusa's "what's wrong" question garnered him a long answer delivered a mile a minute. He only wanted to help, Yurine-kun said. Ikeda was having a rough time at work and at home. Still a newlywed, already in crisis—that was how he put it. Nothing Yurine tried or did seemed right or welcome. He would usually go to Kikukawa for help, but the other man already had enough on his plate. New team, old case, boss breathing down their necks.

Saegusa couldn't really give him any constructive advice, only lending a patient ear, and making some supportive noises. He watched Yurine-kun work through his own frustrations, and saw the exact time the younger man found his own answers, built his own resolve back up. He saw how the younger man transform from a stuttering self-doubting mess in a corner, into the owner of a unique purposeful stride.

He watched Yurine-kun stride down the corridor, but just before the bend that would take him out of sight, he saw Yurine-kun being stopped by Kikukawa. The two exchanged some short words, some nods and some pats on the back. He couldn't hear what was being said, but Saegusa could guess what the two friends must've been talking about.

Watching Yurine-kun's form disappear around the corner, Saegusa realized that he had been holding his breath unknowingly. What he didn't know at that point in time, was that he had finally found the perfect person to lead ST. And perhaps, he added to himself, the perfect team to save Yurine from himself. 

 

** ** ** ** **

 

An almighty crash and some cursing from the other side of the door jolted him out of his thoughts, and he realized he had been standing in an empty corridor for too long. He would like to ponder more about this, but the flickering overhead lighting was about a minute away from giving him a proper headache.

_It's do or die time_ , Saegusa decided, pushing the door open and thanking whomever that kept the hinges well-oiled.

 

** ** ** ** **

 

"I didn't expect to find you here," Saegusa remarked, keeping his tone light, spreading his arms wide in a gesture of "hello" but also in a way that he hoped would say "I'm not here to do you harm".

The shadow at the corner of the room all but jumped. Yurine yelped andthe coat rack that he was trying to put up, fell again, this time without a sound because it was caught before it hit the ground. "You knew all along anyway," came the retort after a few minutes of getting over a fright. And perhaps getting over something else. Saegusa tried not to flinch. 

Saegusa tsked instead, conveniently disregarding the guarded look in Yurine's eyes with practiced ease.  _Compartmentalize. It's what we old ones are good at_. "I might not look it, but I was already an ace detective when you're still in diapers."

"I know," Yurine-kun said. To Saegusa, he sounded listless. "My boss... new boss... told me. He told me what a waste of talent you gave up everything to fly a desk and babysit a bunch of freaks."

"Tell your boss, hope he never change his blunt ways." Saegusa remembered that one. A year above him, brash and abrasive, the type of person who would talk himself out of trouble after talking himself into it in the first place. A man who will fall on his sword for his team. The kind of guy all the juniors looked up to.

"Sure," came the reply, unintelligible behind a self-deprecating chuckle. "You know, I think I might've insulted him somewhat after that," Yurine-kun laughed a little. "Way to make a good impression on my first day at work, isn't it? He made me sit that case out, you know. Told me to...."

"... sit on your head and reflect?" God knows Saegusa had heard that phrase enough times in the past. It made him feel a little nostalgic.

Yurine-kun offered a smile and a nod. "Maybe I spent too much time doing that. In hindsight, not the best way to endear myself to a new team."

Saegusa saw the beginnings of a rant bubbling up underneath the surface. When Yurine felt frustrated, he would just vent, only to come up with a solution himself. So Saegusa just took it as a cue to sit down and brace himself... for the venting that never came.

 

** ** ** ** **

 

At the heart of it, Yurine was an open book... written in a dead language. Saegusa sighed in frustration, watching the person in question steadily cleaning up the place. You can't hope to read the damn thing, but there's more ways to read a book than just by... reading it. The doodles and scribbles in the margin; the way certain pages were turned and consulted more than the rest, the way some corners curled inwards and others laid flat or weren't cut at all, the cracks in the spine, the stains on each page, the passing of time. 

Saegusa didn't know when he realized it at first, but now that he had, he couldn't ignore the signs: When Yurine-kun was frustrated, he cleaned. The more unsettled he was, the cleaner he got. He took a seat and tried to be unobtrusive as possible, but soon he was following his subordinate around the room, quietly marveling at how it was actually possible to arrange case files and scrap paper along Dewey lines. Not that he would admit, even under pain of death, that he had wanted to become a librarian for precisely 5 months during his Police Academy days.

"How are you?" Saegusa ventured during what he thought was an appropriate window of time. "You missed my cafe opening day."

"Was it today?" Yurine-kun asked, without turning around or even lifting his head up from the pile of papers he was arranging into a folder in front of him. From the blurry pictures on dusty paper, Saegusa could tell you exactly which case that was, and when. 

"You're still as bad a liar as you always have been,"

"Ah busted again," a chuckle rose from among rustling paper.

"Only because Kikukawa told me he had reminded you several times."

"Yes he did," came the sober rejoinder. "I'm sorry, it's nothing against you or the cafe... er, you know...," Yurine floundered, not wanting Saegusa-san to take it the wrong way. The last time he had been to the cafe, he had been shot—an opening salvo to a crazy night where he survived a garotte to the neck and another shot in the arm. He saw Saegusa wince and he felt rather guilty. "I really wanted to go... it's just...

"It's fine," Saegusa came up next to Yurine-kun, watching the methodical way the younger man sorted old case papers. "The cafe will still be there tomorrow."

Sometimes, he wondered whether Yurine would willingly go to Cafe 3 ever again. Whereas criminals often returned to the scene of the crime (or reopen it like he did), victims rarely liked to remember a trauma.

Once the dust had settled over the case, Saegusa had made a point to clean the floor entirely, deep cleanse, and it came out like new. The next day he came in, he found he couldn't stand the floor and had the whole thing taken up, and replaced with a completely new one. He liked the new patterns better. He wondered if Yurine would notice.

But all Yurine did now was give him a tight nod. For Saegusa and the team, at least, he would try. Tension bled into the air and they lapsed into an uneasy silence.

"It was a bad case, wasn't it?" Saegusa asked kindly. He didn't want to admit it, but he missed having Yurine-kun around, missed having the younger man sit in front of him, asking for advice. It made him feel useful, not just some washed up police bureaucrat filling in an empty desk.

"I didn't realize how badly it still affected me." It was so quiet that Saegusa barely heard anything. "There were a couple of similar cases when I was with ST, and I barely felt anything about them. Murder-suicides..." A huge sigh. "I thought I've gotten over those. I guess I grew complacent because of ST."

"Proof that ST is your place?" Saegusa reminded kindly.

"I wonder if it's still true."

 

** ** ** ** **

 

Saegusa remembered what Mastudo had told him, that evening once they had wrapped up the Kaburagi case.

"I asked if he would prefer to stay with ST. Told him he could if he wanted to, told him he could keep his new rank and pay grade too," Matsudo had told him. "He turned me down. Just like that." She had sighed. "It's not about the pay, he told me. It's not about running away from ST either."

Like himself, Matsudo was beginning to learn about the complexities of Yurine's thought processes, one that was buried so deep under that simple facade of his.

 

** ** ** ** **

 

"You left, and now you're not sure if you're still welcome," Saegusa supplied the answer, and watched as Yurine-kun struggle with the answer for a while. After a good minute doing a good imitation of a landed fish, Yurine finally settled for a slow nod.

"If you were there, you'd laugh your head off," Yurine said, in lieu of whatever else he had wanted to say—a rebuttal, perhaps, a defense, or something else. He moved on to scrubbing a desk clean."Told them I was going away to become a better detective. Told them I would return once I do." He sighed harshly enough that a few specks of dust lifted off the table. "Come to think of it now, it was arrogant of me to say so, wasn't it?"

Saegusa had noticed this about Yurine too, the spat of arrogance that would overtake him at times. The grand pronouncements followed by crushing remorse. "Why did I say that?" came up often enough.

"I haven't become better, and I really shouldn't have expected them to wait for me, should I? I can already hear Akagi-san saying it... you're a hundred years too early and so on and so forth..."

Yurine also didn't need anyone telling him how ST had flourished since he had left. There were more divisions asking them for help. And they played well with other people as well, or at least less people were annoyed at them... mostly thanks to Ikeda's deftly politic interference. He looked around the room, a place that had been theirs when they had first started. There was the pair of speakers, that used to transmit Akagi-san's voice. It was a long time ago when Akagi-san was a shut-in. Was Yurine the only one stuck in the past, unable to move on?

"Only you can answer that," Saegusa reminded kindly. "Didn't you do that Hundred Career Choices thing for every member way back when? Why don't you try it on yourself and see?"

 

** ** ** ** **

 

Saegusa watched as the young man made a move to start his self-appointed chore, scrambling for his everpresent notepad and pen. Yurine would be here all night and someone needed to be here with him. And much as Saegusa would like to accompany the man and keep whatever demons were haunting Yurine's mind, he still had his own cafe to manage. And assuming the clock in the corner was still correct, it was almost dawn.

"Why don't you come over to the cafe?" he asked. "I think most of them will still be there." In his mind, gears were already whirling. Someone needed to get Yurine out of his funk, and he had a feeling that it might not be a job for two of Yurine's oldest friends. 

"It's almost dawn though," Yurine pointed out. "On a workday..."

But it was a lame excuse, the both of them knew, because really, none of them would voluntarily leave without being thrown out past closing time. On the one hand, they ate, drank, and paid enough to keep the Cafe in the black from the get-go. On the other hand, Saegusa couldn't help but wonder whether it's healthy for all of them to fixate on his cafe like that.

When he left the force to go undercover, he relished the chance to meet them at the Cafe. He would never admit it to them, but he had wavered at times only to be righted again when they had come to visit. Not to mention that giant Gakky costume that Akagi had left. It had been a reminder of his mission, despite the many times he had been tempted to go over to the other side. Akagi, despite his brash ways, could be subtle if he wanted. It had never been by coincidence that he left the costume there, as a beacon and as a reminder. Saegusa wondered if he had to be wary of Akagi, who could know his mind so clearly even before he himself realized his own treacherous feelings. 

The Gakky costume disappeared on the same day he rejoined the force—although he never actually left—and in its place came a whole slew of people from the force. Matsudo's people, Kikukawa's people... everyone at every minute they could spare. Sometimes, he wondered whether it wasn't such an overkill for him to see them—at the office and the cafe, and everywhere in between, it seemed. Only his happy bank balance stopped him from dwelling on the issue too much. He sighed. 

Intercepting Yurine's pen before it could touch paper, he hauled the tired young man up to his wobbly feet. "Come on. You might want to start working on that at home."  _And maybe get some rest in the meanwhile_. "The flickering light is giving me a headache. I'm sure it's doing the same to you."

Yurine could be stubborn, and it was only bone-deep lethargy that made him so agreeable. 

In no time at all, he was being politely urged into the back of a taxi, with promises that yes, Yurine would take the next available taxi. He realized belatedly that he should've asked Yurine for his new address, because even though he knew it was on file somewhere, Saegusa couldn't even begin to remember where anything was filed (Matsudo gave him grief about it, so he knew it must've been really bad). Yet, Saegusa knew for sure that Akagi would be able to figure out where to go anyway. 

 


End file.
